Essendee Narrow Boat: A new adventure

Hello Boaters

We are on our travels again after a few weeks back in sunny Cardiff, whilst home unfortunately we had to have a cat "Firkin" put to sleep. she had not been right since her brother died, but whilst home she stopped eating and was generally not interested in much around her so we took her to the vets and now she joined her brother Cooking in catty heaven.

Every thing else at home was fine, we saw my mum a few times and she was in good spirit and health even though she moans about her aches and pains, but she not alone their. So yesterday we drove up to the marina and loaded the boat with provisions, topped up with water and had a night in front of the telly.

For the last few weeks whilst we were home the weather has been great for the time of year, with a lot of sunshine and warmth, we get ready to set of today and guess what it's grey and raining,typical, but not to worry we set off and leave the marina,not turning right or left but straight, under a bridge and on to the grand union heading toward Birmingham,we pass Napton reservoir and the big marinas of Calcutt and Venta the latter belongs to the same chain as ours which is Castle Marinas Here is the start of our locks which are of a different operating system to the ones we have used previously, but same principal though, we have a flight of three to operate before we are off again in open farmland.

It's not long till we reach the top lock of the Stockton flight where eight locks drop us down to the village of Long Itchington with its six pubs and one shop,around this area are a lot of quarries which produce Blue Lias which is used in the production of cement, which a lot was used in the construction of the Thames Embankment. We moor at the bottom of the flight by a pub named the Blue Lias where we might sample a few shandies later on.

In one of the quarries whist excavating a huge fossil of a Ichthyosaurus was found in the lowest layer of the Jurassic period, its now displayed in a museum in London.

These disused quarries have been the subject of controversy in the area for many years ad in the summer of 1995 it was invaded by New Age travellers. The night before they were due to be evicted they held an all-night rave which could be heard as far away as Long Itchington. The publicity surrounding this event caused an increase in trespass in the main larger quarries, which had long been fenced off, and this led to several accidents. Rugby Cement, who owned the site, built a substantial galvanised steel paling fence round a large part of the former quarries at a cost of roughly £70,000